This invention relates to a mobile apparatus for mechanically shearing or shredding solid waste material such as rubber tires.
Disposal of solid waste materials represents a substantial ecological and economic problem. More particularly, scrap automobile tires present an especially vexing ecological and economic problem. Each year there are an estimated 280 million scrap tires discarded throughout North America. Unwanted scrap tire piles scattered throughout the countryside have been estimated to contain as many as 3 billion tires. Scrap tires' poor biodegradability, their tendency to trap gasses and rise to the surface in landfills, the serious fire hazard scrap tires represent, and the breeding environment that unwanted scrap tires offer to disease-carrying pests such as rodents and mosquitos have caused them to be classified as a serious environmental nuisance.
The vast majority of used tires are generated at retail tire outlets where the used tires are removed from vehicles prior to installation of new tires. Traditionally, the tires have been collected from the retail tire outlets by small independent truck operators who merely pick up the old tires, receive a fee for each tire collected, and deposit the old tires at municipal or private dump sites. Specifically, the tires are typically taken from the retailer in a stake truck, are then transferred from the stake truck into a transport trailer, and are then taken in the transport trailer to a tire dump site. This entire collection process, even if efficiently carried out, only exacerbates the existing environmental problem since the supply of festering tires at the dump sites continues to multiply and the availability of dump sites continues to dwindle. Further, the collection process itself is rather inefficient since it is not uncommon for individuals to collect tires from a retail outlet, receive a specified payment for each tire collected, but then never deliver the tires to an authorized dump site. Rather, the tires end up being dumped at the most convenient or closest location where they become an eyesore and further exacerbate the environmental problems associated with tire disposal.